I pointed it out to Casper. “What do you think of that?”
He stared at the date and then shrugged. “He got married. So what? Great men do that?”
“Two days before a huge battle? He was in the field, no money, no food. His tent was full of holes. He even said in his diary that he hadn’t been dry in three weeks. Who gets married then?”
“He was in love?”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay. Try this. Who marries a guy in that condition? His men fully expected to die in battle or be executed afterward, if they lived.”
“She was in love?”
“Come on. This is royalty hundreds of years ago. Do you really think love came into it?” I asked.
“No. Love in royalty is a recent development. It would’ve been an arranged marriage.”
I pointed to Emperor Leopold portrait. “Who would give their daughter to that guy on that day of all days?”
Casper shook his head, his leaves brushed my cheek. “No one. It would be monstrous. A father would be sending his child to her death.”
“Exactly.” My arms started tingling and my stomach twisted. An idea was forming, but I wasn’t ready to say it out loud. “Keep looking. Someone saw Ansgar. Someone knew who she was.”
It took another half hour, but Casper found what I needed, a little hand-written diary by a courtier. Casper had set it aside because of the missing pages, but that’s what got my attention. The courtier was at the battle and totally expected to die. The pages where the battle would’ve been written were gone and also big chunks of texts throughout the next ten years, the timespan when all of the emperor’s children would’ve been born. Eventually, the courtier retired out to an estate in Salzburg. His diary was intact after that and pretty boring. He was very concerned about his lumbago and his crops. Near the end of his life, he did some reminiscing about his youth and those pages were intact. He confirmed that they should’ve lost the battle and said he had no proof, but he believed that Ansgar turned the tide. He thought she had some kind of magic that she used for the emperor and she enabled him to win. The courtier was pretty vague, but it was clear that he was terrified of Ansgar and she was the reason he left court. He described her as tall, blond, and beautiful. She had two brothers, but no names were given. He also said that she was rarely seen at court and kept to her apartments. The courtier heard a rumor that the empress disappeared after Rudolph’s birth.
Casper read the words after me and said, “You’re right. She had it. Ansgar was the beginning. She didn’t disappear. She died young.”
Maybe. Maybe not.
“Does the imperial family have marriage certificates?” I asked.
He chuckled. “No. They have marriage contracts. Money changes hands. Lands. That sort of thing.”
“Let’s see who gave what when Ansgar was married. Do you have copies somewhere?”
“Naturally. But why bother? I doubt it would mention her disease,” said Casper.
“There’s no way it would mention that, but it might give us some clue about her.”
Casper agreed and brought out an ancient oak chest with straps of leather binding it closed. He opened it and revealed rows of thin glass vials like test tubes corked with silk fabric. Each vial had swirling lines in it. They glowed blue, exactly like the blue of my magical contract.
Casper picked up the one on the top. Its fabric was fresh and unfaded, a lovely purple and green silk swirled like my wings. “This is your contract. Don’t get any ideas.”
“About what?” I asked.
“About breaking it.”
“If we broke the vial, would that end the contract?”
“Yes.” He looked at me with a fierceness you wouldn’t think an olive tree could have. “You’ll do it over my dead body.”
That would be so easy, old man.
“Calm your branches.” One was repeatedly smacking me upside the head. “I’m not here for my contract. Can you find the one for the marriage?”
He put my contract in its delicate vial back on the pile. “I can.” Casper put his gnarled hands over the chest. “Da mihi Ansgar.”
The vials shivered and began shuffling around. I imagined there was a great deal of clinking, but I couldn’t hear it. Eventually, one, the oldest one, with a ratty faded scrap of silk in the top. It floated up into Casper’s hand and he held it aloft between us. “No one is allowed to view imperial marriage contracts. Her Majesty will have to view it and tell us what it says.”
I rolled my eyes and plucked out the silk. Casper was too slow to stop me. There was a lot of satisfaction in that. The blue glowy lines swirled up and out of the vial and unfurled into the formal lines of a contract. It was short, much shorter than I expected for a royal marriage contract. It just said Leopold the Bold was to marry Ansgar. There was no dowry mentioned, but provisions for Ansgar’s needs and desires were outlined. She was required to produce children, who would be the sole heirs of the Austrian crown, and she was to ensure the supremacy of Leopold, rightful emperor of Austria.
“This isn’t right,” said Casper. “There’s no family name. No lineage. No dowry. Why on earth would he have her? Royal marriages were to garner power, to add to the wealth of the family.”
The contract glowed in the dim light of the archive and obtuse as it was, it told me what I needed to know. “Ensure the supremacy of Leopold the Bold,” I said.
“What?” asked Casper.
“She did, I mean, she ensured his supremacy.”
“But Ansgar gave him nothing.”
“She gave him a throne.”
He put his fat old nose in the air. “That is ridiculous.”
“Do you have a Speciesapedia?” I asked.
Casper found one for me. The copy was two hundred years old but was pretty much the same as Gerald’s copy. I thumbed through it, my stomach twisted harder with each flip of the page until I got to the Hs. I read through the lines, but I didn’t change my opinion.
“I should’ve known the moment I saw her hands. I just couldn’t believe it,” I said, running my finger down the neat lines of copperplate writing.
Casper took my hand. “Who was she?” he asked, his old face oddly innocent.
“Ansgar was a horen.”
He dropped my hand and scoffed, “That’s impossible. Horen don’t breed. They’re mistakes. The Speciesapedia says so right there.”
“It says that they aren’t thought to breed. There’s a difference.”
“It can’t be.”
“You’ve seen the empress’s hands. She’s developed claws.”
“Horen claws are probably different,” he said, trembling.
“They’re close enough. You can trust me on that,” I said.
“But why would he? Why would she?”
“If I had to guess, she wanted to be an empress and he wanted an empire. It worked out for both of them. She must’ve fought in the battle with her so-called brothers. Three horen could easily make up the odds in Leopold’s favor.”
“And Rudolph was half-horen. He died very young.”
“Yes, he did. They all did.”
Casper pushed aside the Speciesapedia and pulled the family tree over. “Not all of them.” He pointed to Empress Maria Luisa’s name. “You said it stopped here.”
“Actually,” I said, “it stopped here.” I pointed to Maria Luisa’s first husband’s name, Albert of Austria, and his early death date in battle. “He was the only family member eligible for marriage. Maria Luisa married outside the family because she had to. The illness ended with the introduction of fresh blood.”
Casper stared at the intersecting lines. “It’s normal for royalty to marry cousins.”
“Normal but disastrous. I think that Maria Luisa figured it out when her children by Alexander Astor didn’t have the disease. I guess Ansgar’s genetics were watered down enough that it took two with the same blood to make the worst happen. Marriages were made with foreign princes or princesses after that. No cousins.” My fin
ger traced the lines down to the empress’s parents, third cousins.”
Casper’s hands curled into fists. “They married for love. The court was against it. They said it was no longer done, that business of marrying cousins.”
“But they didn’t know why,” I said.
“I never would’ve guessed. No one said. I…I encouraged Marie Karoline.” He took my arm and squeezed. “I was there. I was the one who said love was important and that our beloved empress didn’t need to push that aside for a political alliance. It’s my fault.”
He turned his head and his leaves brushed my face. After I pushed them away, I saw the emperor in the door with a large key in his hand. “You’ve figured it out.”
The emperor paced in front of the portraits of his ancestors, casting angry glances at Leopold the Bold who’d started all the trouble.
“Is it certain?” He didn’t ask me. He asked Casper, who was softly weeping over the family tree.
Casper nodded and straightened up to his full height, his branches tickling the ceiling. “Yes, Your Majesty. I believe Mattie and I believe Otto Karajan.”
The emperor’s face twitched with pain I recognized. The kind of pain I’d experienced when I was eight and realized I was something fearful, a kindler. And then again when I watched Grandma Vi die with my mother crumpled in agony on the floor next to her. One doesn’t forget those pains. You can never walk away and leave them behind. I was so sorry that the emperor was discovering that for himself.
“You’re crying,” he said to me.
I brushed my cheeks and found hot tears there. “I guess I am.”
“For me?”
“Yes.”
A look of surprise came over his stern features. “I don’t believe anyone has ever cried for me before.”
“You’re quite wrong,” said Casper.
The emperor smiled. “Nanny.”
“The empress.”
The emperor looked quite shocked. “I didn’t know she could cry.”
“She didn’t want you to see it. She fears for you, your sister, and the difficulties she’s leaving you all with.”
The emperor went over and traced his lineage to his peasant father, the common professor, whose clean blood had shielded him. “So she’s dying, nothing can be done.”
I crossed the room in an effort to delay what must be said and picked up the courtier’s diary. “The horen blood is claiming her. I don’t know how to stop it. Perhaps the vermillion…”
The emperor looked up sharply. “You think the vermillion could do something for my mother?”
“I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t…I don’t think any of them survived.”
He unbuttoned his jacket and pulled out a slim packet. “But they have. At least one has.”
I gasped. “Who?”
“I don’t know, but I received this letter from one of my spies in Paris. I sent him there after you told me what happened in the catacombs. He’s discovered that there is a vermillion imprisoned in the Loire valley in one of the chateau. It’s curious though. This vermillion was removed by a faction within the revolutionaries along with other prisoners.
My chest went all funny as if J had a screwdriver and was tightening and tightening. “What’s the faction?”
He flushed. “The very worst. It’s the horen. There was one in Paris. Did you know that?”
I could hardly speak. “I did.”
The emperor went back to pacing and it was all I could do to keep patient. “I’ve never seen one. A horen, I mean. But I am one.”
“No, you are not,” said Casper.
“Aren’t I?”
“Absolutely not. Tell him, Mattie.”
“Yes. Tell me, Mattie. I have a feeling you know quite a bit more than you’ve said.”
I fiddled with the courtier’s diary. “I saw one in Paris. Does your man say anything else about the prisoners?”
“No, but he’s still inquiring. Do you think they’re your family?” asked the emperor.
“Why do you say that, sir?”
He smiled. “You’re not who you say you are, clearly. Your brothers and sister are on their own in Vienna. It’s very odd.”
“They aren’t on their own. They have me,” I said, feeling affronted as if I hadn’t done a good job. Look at me in that stupid uniform with cracked and blistered hands. I was doing pretty darn good.
“A child,” said Casper.
“I’m not a child.”
“Nor are you eighteen,” the emperor said. “You’ve two brothers Nanny tells me.”
“I’m taking care of them,” I said.
“Brothers are difficult, especially younger brothers who aspire.”
That was interesting and not about me. “To the throne?”
“Some would, but not mine. Archduke Franz-Joseph has never wanted the competition. The empress is quite an act to follow. He’d rather strike out on his own.”
“His Highness will leave the palace?”
The emperor smiled. “Only to enter another one.”
I raised an eyebrow. Was he planning to marry into another royal family? They couldn’t have any Habsburg blood. The archduke would have to be told.
“St. Stephen’s,” said the emperor. “My brother wants the Cardinal’s place, always has. He’d be a horrid leader of the church and our people. Thankfully, His Grace has you to help him stay alive long enough to find a proper successor.”
“So if the cardinal died without picking a successor what would happen?” I asked, growing cold.
Casper got a fat tome off a shelf and opened it to a page on Austria and the church. He gave it to me.
“Wait,” I said. “The imperial family could claim the cardinal’s job if he died suddenly without a successor.”
“Well, yes,” said the emperor. “But that’s never happened. The cardinal’s place is very special.”
He and Casper went on, talking about the choices for a new cardinal if I wasn’t able to cure the liver ailment, but I stopped listening. All I could think about was the times the cardinal had gotten so ill. Tea with the archduke. Breakfast at the palace. Meetings with the archduke. No. Surely not.
“Will you excuse me, sir?” I asked, stepping back toward the door.
He came forward. “And you think the vermillion might help the empress?”
“If anyone can, it’s the vermillion.”
“We need the empress alive. My sister most of all. There is a delegation here from Paris discussing my sister’s fate.”
My stomach went hot and heavy. “You’ve been talking to them. Who are they? What do they want?”
“I’m afraid the empress and her counselors have seen them alone. The empress says I’m not ready to make the hard choices. I fear that what they want in exchange for my sister and her children is terrible indeed.”
“But you, sir…”
The emperor glanced at the portrait of Leopold the Bold. “I’m not the man my mother is or my brother for that matter. I haven’t the killer instinct of a great ruler.”
I swallowed. “The archduke has?”
“Without a doubt,” he said.
“Where is the archduke today?”
“Out visiting the people for Christmas Eve. They love him for it.”
“Would churches be included?”
“Probably. Why?” He stopped me at the door. “What’s happened? Is it the empress? You must tell me.”
“I had it all wrong. It’s not the empress that Austria’s going to lose. It’s the cardinal.”
“What do you mean?”
I wrenched my arm out of his grasp and ran.
Chapter Thirty
I POUNDED ON the ceiling. “Open up, you stupid thing!”
The wood wouldn’t fold back and let me out. I was about to burn my way through when the emperor ran up beside me. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to get out!”
“You’re acting like the desk is on fire.”
“Ope
n it or it will be.”
The emperor touched the wood and it folded back instantly and I ran up into the light, snapping open my wings.
Gledit landed in front of me. “Mattie, have you seen Gerald?”
“What?” I asked. “Where’s Lysander? Did you lose my little brother?”
“I was watching him, so Lysander could get ready for his performance tonight and I didn’t lose him. We were at the school and he got all funny, started trembling and crying. I went to get some water and when I came back, he was gone,” said Gledit.
“Gerald!” I yelled, spinning around.
This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t. I had to go. I had to find the cardinal.
The emperor came up the stairs, incredibly dignified you’d never know that he’d just gotten devastating news about his mother. “Have you lost someone?”
“My brother,” I said. “Gerald!”
Where would he go? He didn’t know the palace.
The emperor took me by the shoulders. “What does he look like?”
“What?” Why?”
“I find things. It’s my gift,” he said.
“Really? That’s your magical gift?”
“It’s not the only one. I repulse people pretty regularly. What does he look like?”
I described Gerald. The emperor closed his eyes and then said, “He’s behind the clock.”
Gledit and I ran across the desk to the big golden clock that sat on the other side. Gerald was behind it with his knees drawn up to his chest, sobbing into his notebook. I dropped to my knees. “What happened?”
“They’re here,” said between chattering teeth.
“Who?”
He looked up past me to Gledit and the emperor and then whispered, “You know?”
“Horen?”
His face pulled back into a terrified grimace.
I turned to the emperor. “There’s a horen in the palace?”
“No, of course not. There hasn’t been a horen in Austria in two hundred years. And this little boy didn’t say there was a horen. How would he recognize one anyway? They’re not exactly common.”
Wicked Chill (Away From Whipplethorn Book Four) Page 33
